Media

Fulfillment Center’s Account vs. Small Parcel

One of the most important factors for an eCommerce store, is the cost of shipping your product to the consumer. For small to medium size eCommerce businesses, it’s hard to offer free shipping when you understand the many factors that go into calculating the cost of a product. In today’s world, everyone wants low cost, or preferably free shipping. Sometimes, this can even determine if a customer will buy a product in the first place.

When determining the cost of shipping your product, there are a lot of questions you may be asking yourself. Which courier will I use? Which shipping services will I offer? Can I offer free shipping? These are all great questions to help get you started however, the one that is arguably the most important is should I use my own shipping account, or utilize my fulfillment center’s account? Listed below are advantages of using your fulfillment center’s account and why it can be more beneficial.

Discounted Rates

All couriers based their rates on the volume that is shipped. The higher the volume, the higher the discount and vice-versa. Since fulfillment centers have hundreds of clients who are shipping small parcel, they will have better discounts. They’re also able to negotiate even better pricing because of how much they’re already spending with a specific courier. With this said, if your eCommerce business is small to medium size, it may be best to utilize your fulfillment center’s account and take advantage of cheaper rates. This way you can offer your customers a low shipping cost or even free shipping!

Freight Management

Another advantage of using your fulfillment center’s account is having your distributor manage your freight. Fulfillment centers will audit and pay freight bills, ensure that packages are delivered on time, and file claims if needed. Some fulfillment centers will even help provide customer service for your customers. This way you can focus on your core competencies and grow your business, which leads to our next point.

Focus on Core Competencies

Planning the logistics of shipping your product is a separate business in itself. In order to be efficient, it makes sense to delegate the time for logistics to a fulfillment center. By using a fulfillment center’s shipping accounts, it frees up the time you would have spent for managing the account and can now be used for growing your business.

Experience and Expertise

When you are looking to grow your eCommerce business, you want to work with people who can help you scale. When working with a fulfillment center, you receive experience experts that will know the best options for your business. They will recommend what shipping services to use and if shipping small parcel is the right fit for you. Sometimes due to the size of your package, it’s best to ship LTL rather than small parcel. Also, when shipping small parcel, you have to be aware of the box sizes due to dimensional weight and make sure that an optimal one is being used. These are all things that fulfillment center’s look at and it’s easier to make these types of decisions when they can see the data on their account.

There is a lot of benefit in using your fulfillment center’s shipping account instead of your own. It can help save you time, money, and headaches from managing the account. You can focus on growing your business while the fulfillment center manages the shipping.